


Get Out Before The Credits Roll

by halfeatenmoon



Category: Community
Genre: Alternate Timeline, Darkest Timeline, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-29
Updated: 2011-12-29
Packaged: 2017-10-28 11:08:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/307236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfeatenmoon/pseuds/halfeatenmoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As if they hadn't been through enough in the darkest timeline, one day everyone turns up for classes to find Greendale's whole interior being torn out and discarded so they can use it as the set for a(nother) TV show. But it's in the strangest of situations when Abed knows exactly what to do. Or at least how to give an episode some closure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Get Out Before The Credits Roll

They didn't even have time to get to their table in the library when they started ripping the walls down around them. Well, not the walls. The things on the walls, and between the walls, and the people that were trying to get in to go to classes.

"What the hell is going on here?" Jeff demanded, as they all stood outside Greendale's front door and watched the parade of men in T-shirts and jeans carrying the contents of their school out the front door, and listened to the cacophany of destruction coming from inside. They could only imagine what it looked like.

Jeff turned to the others as though they'd have an answer, but they were all in as much shock as he was. Abed just stood and stared, so he might have been shocked or just be wearing his normal face, but Britta fell to her knees dramatically and started wailing, so that sort of evened it out. Even Shirley seemed a little surprised, the weirdness of the situation penetrating her relative sobriety while still on the first bottle of the day, and she staggered over to a bench to sit down, still staring. Annie whimpered and looked as though she was about to collapse, and Troy gave her a concerned glance. She'd only been out of hospital for a week and now she had to come home to this? It didn't seem fair. Or good for her health. He shuffled over and gave her a hug, and she hugged him back, hard. His felt goatee was scratching her cheek, but she didn't seem to mind.

"There's only one explanation," said Abed, finally, when Britta had stopped her unnecessarily loud lamentations. "We've been cancelled."

"Damn it, Abed!" Jeff yelled, immediately. "This isn't a TV show! This is our lives! They got shitty enough after Pierce died and I lost my arm..." He paused as Britta let out another wail. "But obviously our lives aren't shitty enough because someone's decided to shut down our school, the last goddamn thing we had, and it's not because we're a fucking TV show!"

"We may as well be a TV show," said Britta, mournfully. "Look how easily they can just turn us off."

He started pacing, glaring at the constant stream of people walking out of the front of the school carrying their old belongings. "They can't just shut the school down with no warning. There are processes they have to go through. This can't be legal. I just have to find out what they're doing... what they _think_ they're doing, I mean, because they're obviously doing it wrong if they're just turfing us out like this with no warning... Hey, you!"

He waved over a man standing near the school's front door, who looked almost identical to the rest of the crew except that he was holding a clipboard. "Hi," said the man. "Are you the previous cast? You're still allowed on set until the end of the week if you need to retrieve any personal belongings, but we'll be setting up for the next shoot after that and we really can't let you hang around. Trade secrets and all."

Jeff stared at him. "On _set_? This is our _home_ , you bastard!"

"Woah." He threw his hands up and backed off defensively. "I'm sorry man, it sucks when shows get cancelled mid-season like that, and I know it's rough on everyone. Hey, yours was even pretty good. I only watched it a few times but I loved what you did with that clip show, it was genius."

Britta mouthed 'what clip show?' at Abed, who shook his head and mouthed back 'later'.

"But like I said, I have a job to do here," the man went on. "We have to get the place re-done for the next shoot in two weeks. They want to use it to shoot footage at some rival school on _Glee_."

They all stood there in silence, only interrupted by the wind that kicked up, sending a couple of dead leaves tumbling wearily over the concrete between Jeff and the other man like the tired cliches they were.

"You know, there's only one thing I hate more than seeing my school gutted like it doesn't even matter," said Jeff, tightly, "And that's that stupid, hackneyed, cloying, inconsistently-written _fucking Glee_!"

"Knock his teeth out!" yelled Shirley, helpfully, as Jeff stomped forward and clenched his one remaining hand in a fist.

The man with the clipboard staggered backwards like he thought Jeff was going to attack him. Which, admittedly, Jeff was trying to do, but it really wasn't difficult for Britta and Troy to hold him back. And to be fair, the man with the clipboard probably didn't realise that Jeff was even worse at fighting than he used to be now that he only had one arm.

"We need to go to the library," Abed announced, suddenly.

"Why?" asked Annie, confused and a tiny bit hopeful. "Abed, do you have a plan?"

"No, I just thought it would give our storyline some closure." He turned to the man with the clipboard again. "Can you give us a few minutes alone on set?"

"Uh, sure," he said, confused. "Where did you say that was again? The library?"

"It's the place with all the books," Shirley snickered. "Can't you read?"

"Lot 2A," said Abed, reassuringly. "Thanks, clipboard man, we'll be out of your hair in no time."

"My name's Bob," he said, as they all filed towards what was left of Greendale College.

"No it's not," said Abed, shortly. "You're not credited on our show."

"Oh _snap_ ," Britta giggled, as they filed in the door.

"Oh, whoops." Abed blinked at her. "Was I being a bitch again?"

"You're Evil Abed now," Troy assured him. "That's what you're _supposed_ to do."

 

Miraculously, the library remained untouched. Their table and chairs were still where they alwasy were and the room was set up the same way it had been for two and a half years, right down to the dusty brown couch in the corner. The only difference was that occasionally they'd see someone on the other side of the windows carrying out some pottery wheels or something, and that wasn't entirely unheard of with the number of times the pottery teacher had stormed out and threatened to leave forever.

"Can't imagine why they wouldn't want to keep this crap," Shirley muttered, as she slouched into a chair.

Annie took her usual spot more gingerly; it was hard to tell whether she was afraid of Shirley or the chair. "It looks just the same. I can't believe that in a couple of days it's all going to be _gone_."

"That's the paradox of TV's transitory nature," Abed said, sagely. "The locations and characters can be erased in an instant when they cut your funding, but the stories live on forever in people's memories. And on late-night reruns."

Jeff glared at Abed at the suggestion that they were all just living in a TV show, but he didn't actually have any grounds to refute it now.

"I'll miss this room," Britta sighed. "We had so many great times in here. Like that time..." She trailed off, frowning as she tried to think of an example she could actually share with the group without disgusting them or embarrassing herself. "The time Jeff attacked the table with an axe?"

Troy stared up at the air vent. "I hope Annie's Boobs is okay. I'd hate him to get thrown out of his home just for an episode of _Glee_."

"I'm sure he'll be fine, Troy," said Annie, and clasped her hands together on the table in front of her. "Monkeys are great at adapting to survive chaning situations. I mean, look at the way Annie's Boobs made such a great home for himself in the air vents in the first place! I hope he does stay here even after we're gone. You know, I might have gotten just a little bit frustrated back when he was taking all my purple pens, but it's nice to think that those ruthless corporate jerks can make this school look like somewhere else, but Annie's Boobs will still be in those vents with all our old stuff, so we'll never be completely gone." She blinked at Troy. "Why are you staring at me like that?"

"You've never actually called him by his name before. I thought maybe I wasn't supposed to mention it. Like how I'm not supposed to mention that you're crazy." He flinched as Britta threw a pen at him.

Annie just giggled and rolled her eyes. "Oh Troy, I went mad with _guilt_ , that's all, and that's... that's still hard... especially when we're all in here and I see the place where Pierce should be..." Her voice wavered and even Shirley hastened to reassure her, until her gaze drifted towards Troy and suddenly hardened. "Britta, did you just hit Troy with _my purple pen_?"

"We don't have time for this," Jeff shouted, and slapped the table for emphasis. "Greendale College is being shut... being _cancelled_ , and we can't just sit around here reminiscing about the past. We have to _do_ something."

"Huzzah!" said Troy, and the agreement rippled around the room.

"Good." Jeff said, playing the fingers of his remaining hand on the tabletop. "Now does anyone have any ideas about what we could do to get uh... renewed?"

"We should all write letters to the network!" said Annie, brightly. "That's what I did when _Moonlight_ got cancelled. It's a great way to show the people who hold the purse strings that the show has popular support! Though, uh, that didn't actually save that show..."

Jeff was staring at her with the sort of weary irritation he usually reserved for the Dean.

"That's a great idea, Annie!" said Britta, a little too enthusiastically. "It's an _awesome_ idea. We could even update it to be even more relevant! We could tweet it! Right, Abed?"

"Well we could tweet about it, but there's not really much point."

"Can't you at least _try_ to be positive?" Britta hissed. "Annie's been through a difficult time and needs our _support_."

"Oh, it's not a bad idea. In fact, a twitter campaign could be a really effective method of getting that message across," said Abed, blithely. "It's just pointless when we could easily solve this problem by travelling back to the prime timeline and replacing the other versions of ourselves."

"Abed...." Jeff growled.

"Evil Abed."

" _Evil_ Abed," Jeff corrected, rolling his eyes. "For the last fucking time, there are no other timelines and we can't magically travel to one, so stop daydreaming and put your goddamn supercomputer brain to good use and try to think of something that can _actually help us_."

"But we can travel to the prime timeline," Troy piped up.

"Not you too," Jeff groaned.

"No, we really can," said Troy. "Abed and I have been there already, like five times. It's awesome. Annie moved in with us."

They exchanged a handshake with an extra wink at Annie.

"Wait." Britta held up a hand, frowning. "If the other timeline - where everything _didn't_ go wrong - is real, and you've been there, then why are the evil versions of you still here?"

"Because we had to come back and get you guys," Troy shrugged. "We couldn't just leave you here in the dark timeline."

"Not cool," Abed agreed.

"So we can just go there?" Annie asked, wide-eyed. "Just like that, we can go back to the way things were?"

"Exactly."

"Then let's go!"

"Wait," Britta said, and Troy groaned.

"What _now_?"

"Why didn't you tell us before now?" She asked. "And how do you know it's safe? Are you sure it'll work to bring _all_ of us across to the other timeline?"

"Oh yeah," Jeff rolled his eyes. "What if we got cancelled in the other timeline, too?"

"Nah, they wouldn't cancel us there. We're awesome."

"And that's exactly why we didn't tell you," said Troy, wisely. "We knew you wouldn't believe us so you wouldn't come."

"We were waiting until you were ready," Abed chimed in. "Now you've got nothing left to lose by staying here. So then," he looked around. "Are we all ready to go?"

"No! Everyone, stop it!" Jeff shouted, when they all began to rise from their chairs, though Shirley kept packing everything back into her handbag anyway. "This is ridiculous! This is the biggest crisis of our lives, and we're going to solve it by following the advice of a friend from community college who watches too much TV?"

Troy and Abed both opened their mouths to speak, but it was Britta who stood and stared him down. "What else is there to do, Jeff? No, really, what else is there? I don't have a better plan. None of us do. It's been a dark couple of months for all of us, and with Greendale closed, there's nothing left for us here. This plan might be nonsensical, but the only other thing we can do is sit here and watch Greendale fall down around us." She held out her hand. "So are you going to come with us, or not?"

Jeff looked up at her, his mouth half open, like there was a smart answer to that somewhere inside him, if only he could find it. But in the end, he just took her hand instead.

One by one, they all picked up their books and their bags and shuffled out. They all stopped for one last look at the study room before Abed shut the door behind them.

"I know it's sad, but we'll be back here good as new when we get back to the prime timeline in a few days."

"A few days?" said Annie. "Why does it take so long?"

"We have to go to England, of course," said Troy.

Britta froze. "Okay, guys," she said, obviously trying to stay calm. "You're not suggesting we have to get _Inspector Spacetime_ to take us back to the real timeline, are you?"

"Of course not," said Abed. " _Inspector Spacetime_ isn't real, that's just a TV show."

"Oh, good," said Britta, visibly relieved.

"We're going to see the Doctor," Troy added, and walked ou the door with Abed.

"The Doctor?" Jeff frowned, following behind them. "Doctor _Who_?"


End file.
